The ‘strategic partnership’ of Research Councils UK (RCUK) brings together the seven UK Research Councils to play an increasingly powerful role in the ‘governance’ and direction of research training. Over the past decade the Councils have converged in their strategic approach, concentrating resources, prioritising inter-disciplinary research, whilst devolving day-to-day decision-making. An early example was the creation of Doctoral Training Centres within universities by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in 2001. EPSRC Centres have a thematic focus and were designed as a strategic mechanism for increasing capacity, and training the next generation of ‘scientists and entrepreneurs’ in inter-disciplinary areas. The ESRC’s 2011 announcement of a network of 21 accredited social science DTCs reflects a major shift in the governance and organisation of doctoral training in the social sciences across the UK. Through site visits, interviews and documentary analysis this study aims to explore the influence of this new policy formation on the governance and pedagogy of doctoral training. A pump-priming grant from the John Fell fund would be very timely, and would enable the preparation of an ESRC bid to look further at the changing shape of doctoral training in the social sciences.

Contact details (should someone want to find out more):Prof Lynn McAlpine; Dr David Mills; Prof Ingrid Lunt 

What motivates early career STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) scientists to remain in today’s increasingly pressurized and entrepreneurial academic labour market? This question matters because the extent to which individuals are prepared to invest in academia will impact not just the quality of knowledge generation but also the quality of learning of future generations of higher education students. Yet, despite calls for greater investment in preparing STEM researchers, there is a significant gap in knowledge of their experiences. This study attempts to fill this by exploring the experiences of doctoral students, as they progress through their programmes and beyond. We ask three questions: (i) How do early STEM scientists experience the shifting nature of academic practice? (ii) What are the day-to-day experiences that influence their notions of what it is to be and develop as an academic? (iii) How do their day-to-day experiences influence their decision to stay in academia or go?  The findings will go some way towards stimulating efforts to enhance institutional pedagogies and policies for early STEM scientist professional development.

Contact details (should someone want to find out more): Prof Lynn McAlpine

This ongoing research began in 2007 and continues today involves colleagues in the Institute (Gill Turner, Jean Rath, and Julia Horn) and in Canada (Cheryl Amundsen). It is examining through time the experiences of doctoral students, research staff/post-docs and new lecturers in the social sciences in 4 different universities (2 in the UK and 2 in Canada). A number of interesting findings have emerged to date: the ways in which personal lives influence the academic decisions participants make, the importance of reading as well as writing in the development of an academic identity, the importance of a range of relationships beyond the supervisor in ensuring progress. The research has been drawn on to provide concrete tools and examples on two websites; as well, excerpts have been used in a number of workshops internationally.

Contact details (should someone want to find out more): Prof Lynn McAlpine

This research with colleagues in Canada (Cheryl Amundsen, Shuhua Chen and Greg Hum) is a longitudinal study (2010-2014) of the experiences of doctoral students, post-docs and new lecturers in the sciences as they deal with the uncertainties of developing and creating their academic identities and careers while sustaining their personal lives. Participants are located in two fields, biology and computing science, in two different universities. It is still early days but since there are very few studies of early career academics in the sciences, we foresee for useful research and pedagogical implications.     

Contact details (should someone want to find out more): Prof Lynn McAlpine

Funded by a grant from ESCalate, the Education subject centre, this is a project involving Oxford, Bristol and Plymouth. The aim is to promote the discussion and development of writing styles and identities as a creative, collaborative aspect of life in the academy for staff and students alike. The key outcome will be the generation of web-based learning materials that can be used by staff and postgraduate students to discuss and develop writing habits, skills and strategies. The project includes opportunities for comparison and collaboration across three very different UK universities (collegiate, civic, campus and new) in order to develop materials suitable for diverse staff and student populations. The project focuses on the process of writing together and using writing as a form of reflexive social inquiry as well as on a variety of different activities and best writing practices. The online materials will include interviews with staff and students and short film clips of writing workshops in process as well as a group video diary/blog and suggestions for a range of activities to support groups in developing their own process of collective facilitating, collaborative writing, critical editing, conjoint publishing and reflexive inquiry. Pilot materials for this project have been generated through a series of three workshops conducted at the University of Bristol with staff and students from a range of postgraduate programmes and various cultural and linguistic backgrounds before being evaluated and refined with focus groups at the Universities of Oxford and Plymouth. The website is due to be published in late 2011: www.writeinquiry.org

Contact details (should someone want to find out more): Dr Jonathan Wyatt

This research paper was commissioned by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education as part of their Stimulus Paper series.  The paper aims to lay the foundation for a discourse focused on student development. It puts forward a conceptual framework for leadership of learning and teaching in higher education, assuming we need to contextualise leadership by focusing specifically on leadership of something for something. In this case, the argument is for leadership of teaching and learning for the purpose of promoting students’ holistic development. To support leaders’ understanding of the key issues in holistic student development and the leadership implications of embracing such an educational purpose, the paper synthesises literature from a variety of spheres that answers five key questions:

1. What is meant by ‘developing the whole student’ and how might this general aim fit within the current UK higher education context?
2. To what extent does a university experience influence students’ holistic development?
3. What educational activities support this type of development?
4. What leadership is required?
5. What are the likely leadership challenges, pitfalls and lessons for those wishing to implement programmes with these goals in the UK higher education context?

Contact details (should someone want to find out more):  Dr. Kathleen M. Quinlan

This pilot study (2010) with colleagues in the Department of Education, Didi Spencer and David Mills examines the nature of the intentional and serendipitous pedagogies that may be present in doctoral training centres, relatively new doctoral structures. There is emerging evidence that suggests some structures may prove to exemplify an ethic of care. While contextual factors will always influence what is possible, such findings provide useful examples that might be modified in other doctoral settings.

Contact details (should someone want to find out more): Prof Lynn McAlpine

This project, for which data collection will be carried out in Jan-March 2011, seeks to understand the experiences of successful participants in the University of Oxford Developing Learning and Teaching Programme, which is accredited by the Higher Education Academy and available to all DPhil and postdoctoral researchers at the University of Oxford. We are seeking to understand:

1. Successful participants’ experiences of completing DLT;
2. Whether (and in what ways) the accreditation and the learning from it has been useful to participants since they have completed the programme;
3. What other forms of professional learning participants have undertaken and found helpful, in their subsequent work;
4. If participants have any recommendations as to how the DLT programme should look in the future.

Contact details (should someone want to find out more): Dr Ian Finlay

Staff from the Learning Institute (Kathleen M. Quinlan) are partnering with experts in engineering (Caroline Baillie, David Edwards, Alex Lubansky, Susannah Speller) to identify thresholds to learning in first year engineering and materials classes at Oxford. Tutors and their students will be interviewed to identify thresholds and their experience of teaching and learning in these areas. Results will be compared to findings from parallel projects at two other universities (Birmingham University, Artemis Stamboulis and the University of Western Australia, Caroline Baillie), thus contributing to and being enriched by a national and international partnership focused on exploring engineering thresholds in foundational engineering subjects. Oxford’s unique tutorial setting will illuminate how individual factors such as student background and motivation and teacher approaches affect the learning of thresholds.

Contact details (should someone want to find out more):  Dr. Kathleen M. Quinlan